alt.hn

5/26/2026 at 3:42:23 AM

Earthion: A New Mega Drive-Style Shoot-Em-Up

 https://earthiongame.com/

by MrBuddyCasino

5/26/2026 at 9:58:01 AM

A lot of people commenting seem unaware it’s an actual Sega Genesis game. It will get a cart release. The modern platform support is via emulators.

It’s extremely well crafted. I’d argue it has the level of polish you’d expect from a very well made modern release. That is not the case with a lot of Genesis era shmups.

by tetrisgm

5/26/2026 at 10:47:38 PM

Yeah, with some effort it's possible (or at least it was) to extract the ROM from the Steam release and play it on the real hardware. They went to a fair bit of trouble to prevent that though. ROM isn't even stored in the clear in-memory while it's running. I guess they wanted to make sure they didn't cannibalize the cartridge release

by mikepavone

5/27/2026 at 9:06:43 AM

Neat, love seeing people make games for older platforms but presumably with modern tools to get more out of it. More as in better performance or more as in higher productivity leading to higher quality art and / or more content.

by Cthulhu_

5/26/2026 at 1:52:54 PM

It's not a Mega Drive-"Style" shoot-em-up, it is a Mega Drive shoot-em-up. 100% Mega Drive code, with a physical cartridge release planned for later this year. It runs on other platforms via emulation.

by wicket

5/26/2026 at 7:56:19 AM

I bought this on Steam last year and it is a great game! A lot of pace and impressive graphics and sound. The music is made by Yuzo Koshiro of Streets of Rage II fame.

You don't even need to buy the cartridge version if you own an SD card adapter.

by G3rn0ti

5/26/2026 at 5:09:20 AM

Does anyone have a video of it on an actual CRT TV? Looking at the youtube gameplay, it looks like it would have some problems with text on the overscan getting cropped.

I am curious how some of the effects look on a CRT.

by wmil

5/26/2026 at 5:51:08 AM

There's a bunch on Youtube. The art has the typical issues of modern 16-bit and 8-bit games where the designers and artists are not targeting the full hardware stack of the era. Rather, they're targeting simulated machines (emulators) and sometimes also flash carts on original hardware but rendered on modern display hardware.

What I notice is that the highly detailed sprite work doesn't produce the elegant artifacting of the era, where pixel bleeding and whatnot would merge nearby colours together to produce desired artistic effects. More often what I see is a smudged mess with noise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWlprFDAobs

by dleslie

5/26/2026 at 11:36:14 AM

The game makes good use of dithering throughout.

Pixel bleeding? Are you referring to color distortion caused by the use of composite video? Why would you expect to see that in a screenshot viewed on your LCD screen? You'd have to actually see the game output via composite from a Mega Drive to a CRT to see it (which you would, since the art uses dithering well).

This is one of the best-looking Mega Drive games released in a very long time, developed by the company responsible for games like Streets of Rage and Beyond Oasis.

by gryson

5/26/2026 at 11:14:55 PM

The video I linked is taken of a CRT and is not a screenshot of an LCD.

This is an excellent deep dive on the issues I spoke of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC-8y2R6IxI

by dleslie

5/27/2026 at 2:42:32 AM

As usual, the video you posted mixes up how CRTs look with composite artifacts. Games played on a good quality CRT with RGB or component signals (arcade machines, PC monitors, TVs with SCART of YPbPr input) don't look nowhere as fuzzy.

by pezezin

5/27/2026 at 6:36:02 PM

And that was almost _never_ the case for 16-bit era gaming, outside of the Arcade. Certainly not for the Genesis.

by dleslie

5/27/2026 at 10:37:43 PM

The Megadrive had native RGB output, you just needed the right cable and TV. Maybe that was not common in the US, but it was in Europe; heck, the French model ONLY had RGB output.

by pezezin

5/27/2026 at 11:47:16 PM

All Genesis models were capable of RGB, but almost everyone used the component and/or RF adapter. I own three American genesis models and have yet to ever own a proper RGB adapter for one.

by dleslie

5/28/2026 at 6:57:22 AM

I know, but the world is not only the US. Europe had SCART and pretty much every TV supported it, and Japan had RGB-21 (same connector with different pinout), but I don't know how common it was.

If you have not tried your MD/Genesis with RGB output I would recommend you to try it, the difference in picture quality and clarity is amazing.

by pezezin

5/28/2026 at 5:54:51 PM

I have HDMI adapters which perform a similar function.

It's awful. Earthworm Jim and Sonic 2 are both great examples of how the art suffers; and the why is in the video I linked.

The waterfall in Sonic 2 was not meant to look like a fence.

by dleslie

5/28/2026 at 11:59:34 PM

I am talking about playing on a real CRT with RGB support.

by pezezin

5/26/2026 at 7:46:40 AM

It doesn't seem that bad to me? Most of the problems that I see in that video look like recording issues where the camera isn't handling max brightness well. Recording CRTs is notoriously difficult!

Generally pixel art created for LCDs also looks good on CRTs, with tiny text being an obvious exception.

by erik

5/26/2026 at 6:58:26 AM

It bothers me when a new creative work tries to adopt a distinct historical style without understanding its form, structure, context, constraints and motivation. Without that understanding it's just derivative imitation which might evoke echoes of the original but can never match, add to it or take it new directions.

While it may sound odd to want new pixel art to be "authentic" in the same way as new music should respect the structure and form of styles like ragtime, blues or jazz, I think it applies equally. The skilled artists who hand-crafted pixels to look their best on CRTs did specific things to leverage CRT bloom and blending, scanlines, composite color artifacting and interlace dithering.

by mrandish

5/26/2026 at 11:43:55 AM

Are you referring to Earthion specifically or just making some grandiose comment about pixel art in the good old days?

What are "CRT bloom and blending"? Are you referring to artifacts caused by composite video output? That is not due to the CRT but rather the signal distortion. RGB output on a CRT will look pixel perfect and colors will not merge. I'd say most gamers using original hardware on CRTs these days are using RGB, so if anything, it reflects the current user trends if the Earthion designer did not use dithering (which he did, making this comment irrelevant).

by gryson

5/26/2026 at 11:08:18 PM

I'm not quite sure what they're on about wrt bloom. CRT bloom is when a bright image displays larger than a dark image. Classically, this is pretty noticable on say Super Street Fighter II Turbo if you do a super combo finish.

If it's particularly noticeable, it probably means you need to service your CRT. But I guess, don't put important content close to the edges of the screen on very bright screens. But you've already got to be careful of putting things near the edge, so it's just be even more careful. It's not really all or nothing, you also get vertical expansion on lines that are bright; here's a video example [1]. I think you can get a bit of vertical bleeding on bright pixels too, depending on adjustment, which you might

I will say, even though bloom is a screen defect, it can be kind of a neat effect... Super Combo Finishes might not be as cool if the geometry held steady.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgHQVowZBm4

by toast0

5/26/2026 at 2:56:40 PM

Very few people are going to play this on a CRT, tho. And even if you included a CRT shader, most people will turn it off.

It's ok to pine for the old techniques, but this is a game made for a Genesis in modern times. It has to stride both.

by elfly

5/26/2026 at 8:27:15 AM

So you believe the artists responsible for this game graphics do not understand all of this ? Would you care to explain exactly how you came to this conclusion ? Because in my non expert eyes, it looks as good or even better as any old school megadrive game on a CRT.

By the way, some of my favorite games on Megadrive are homebrews, most notably Astebros and other Neofid games.

by ddrdrck_

5/26/2026 at 10:59:28 PM

I completely agree with you. I have all three Neofid games released to date (Demons of Asteborg, Astebros, Daemon Claw) and I played them on a nice VGA Trinitron (clean and sharp RGB), and they look gorgeous, much better that most games of that era.

And before someone mentions composite artifacts: the Neofid guys are French, if and France gave two good things to the world, those were the metric system and SCART. You guys should really try them both.

by pezezin

5/26/2026 at 8:15:14 AM

That's usually not a problem with Mega Drive/Genesis games, as they typically don't draw beyond the 224 lines that are visible on a (correctly calibrated) CRT TV. I've played this game on a B&O MX4000 CRT using an original Mega Drive and I didn't notice any issues.

by ndepoel

5/26/2026 at 3:00:33 PM

No video, but I play this on a CRT with a flash cart and it looks and plays amazing. Way better than playing it on steam via a modern display, even with the fancy CRT shaders they give you.

by fooqux

5/26/2026 at 11:37:56 AM

I suspect the developers had enough foresight to not include text outside the display window.

by gryson

5/26/2026 at 5:07:35 AM

It is also an actual Mega Drive game

by Tommix11

5/26/2026 at 5:19:20 AM

They said they were going to release actual cartridges in 2026. I'm not sure if it has happened yet.

by wmil

5/26/2026 at 7:56:56 AM

I wonder how well their company logo would go down with Sega's lawyers.

by stinkbeetle

5/26/2026 at 8:10:30 AM

Sega are famously far less litigious than most games companies. They know about modders, community servers (for example PSO servers) and even fans who release brand new games using Sega mascots like Sonic. In fact (IIRC) that’s how Sonic Mania began life.

This might be different given it’s a company logo and thus trademark. But I wouldn’t be so sure they’d get a cease and desist like if someone imitated Nintendos logo.

by hnlmorg

5/26/2026 at 2:16:37 PM

I wonder where's the line between using a font and copyright/trademark infringement.

by marci

5/26/2026 at 5:45:22 PM

If the font is proprietary then using that without permission could be copyright infringement.

If the logo can be confused as owned by another entity, then that could be argued as trademark infringement.

But these cases would need to be decided in court. And different jurisdictions might be more restrictive than others.

by hnlmorg

5/26/2026 at 11:42:46 AM

"Physical editions of Earthion are coming to North America! Pre-order the Standard or Collector’s Editions at Limited Run Games"

Yikes. Seems like i'm not getting a physical copy then. I'm not giving any money to LRG. Which is a shame because it looks like a cool game.

by alwaysmrno

5/26/2026 at 12:14:02 PM

LRG? Limited Run Games? I've never heard of them before. How come you're shunning them?

by movedx

5/26/2026 at 3:12:55 PM

I didn't know either, so I started searching around. Just typing "limited run games" in DDG the suggested search that pops up is "limited run games controversy", which is never a good sign. Looks like there have been a few issues and even settlements.

by fooqux

5/27/2026 at 6:16:06 AM

Theres a lot of reasons. One is that their CEO is an unhinged ass. If you complain about something or return a defective product the ban you from buying form them ever again. And that they are basically scalpers. the "Limited" in theire name is an outright lie as they usually print a lot more copies of "rare single run games" and then sell them on ebay for an extra profit.

just your general allround asshole business. You can find more detail information on youtube

by alwaysmrno

5/27/2026 at 8:52:02 PM

Oh dear. Thanks for the heads up. Sorry if you had a bad experience.

by movedx

5/26/2026 at 2:40:46 PM

I was wandering around the expo floor at PAX East last year when I noticed Earthion at the Limited Run demo arcade. I had a lot of fun playing it on the floor so I bought the full game on Steam. It's a quality shmup! For me the difficulty really spikes on stage 3 and that's where I got stuck, though I did make it to stage 4 once or twice. The initial release had some bullet visibility issues that were improved in subsequent updates. The default CRT filter is fun but I turned it off almost immediately for more visual clarity.

by davexunit

5/26/2026 at 8:10:13 AM

Haven't seen so many uninformed comments in a while on HN :-/ This is a MegaDrive game running in an emulator for the modern ports. Made by Makoto Wada and Yuzo Koshiro. Doesn't get mich more authentic than that imho. Original hardware, original artists. I understand it's not everyone's tea (anymore) tho.

by cedel2k1

5/26/2026 at 8:50:45 PM

> Haven't seen so many uninformed comments in a while on HN

Can you link to the ones you mean? As another commenter has pointed out, there don't seem to be "many", but without links it's impossible for anyone to know what you mean.

It's not cool to slur the community like this. HN users are of a highly diverse age range and awareness level of older technologies. It would be much better if you can point to the ones you mean and respond to them constructively.

(It's also against the guidelines to comment like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

by tomhow

5/26/2026 at 3:54:05 PM

Just to put it out there, since some people might not know, Koshiro who is probably best known for Streets of Rage, is widely regarded as a master video game composer, right up there with Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy) and Koji Kondo (Mario/Zelda).

Give the Stage 1 music from ActRaiser a listen to see (or hear) what I mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB9Pym-sdbs

by vunderba

5/27/2026 at 1:04:57 PM

I know some people who know him, and by all accounts he is also a very friendly guy, he loves attending all sort of gaming events, both within Japan and abroad.

by pezezin

5/26/2026 at 11:51:45 AM

Don't you know - everyone's an expert because they saw a YouTube video about how modern pixel art isn't authentic...

Seriously, this game is a miracle, and the amount of love Ancient put into it is unlike anything we've ever seen for a modern commercial release on hardware that came out in 1988!

It certainly beats out a good portion of the games originally released on the Mega Drive.

by gryson

5/27/2026 at 2:45:42 AM

[dead]

by pezezin

5/26/2026 at 1:33:10 PM

While this is an informative comment, did HN start deleting comments? These comments you mention do not seem to exist...

by smaudet

5/26/2026 at 8:52:20 PM

We (moderators) don't ever delete comments (except in rare cases where a user later asks us to do so for privacy reasons).

The most obvious candidate for what the parent commenter is referring to is this one, which has been flagged/killed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48275838

by tomhow

5/26/2026 at 1:35:38 PM

People do delete their own comments after they've had a moment to consider what they've written. It's an honorable thing to do, IMO.

by pohl

5/26/2026 at 11:46:45 PM

The title of the thread itself says "Mega Drive-Style Shoot-Em-Up" (which implies it's not a Mega Drive game bit just one made in that style), so it's likely that's what's tripping people up.

by joemi

5/26/2026 at 12:18:53 PM

This game is so close to be amazing but the bullet visibility problems bring it down greatly. If they can solve the pixel layer limitations, even if it’s only on the non-MD version, so enemy bullets are always above everything else, then it’s a an easy buy. Until then, it’s just only if you’re a dedicated shmup guy that loves MD games.

by throwatdem12311

5/26/2026 at 3:46:21 PM

That sucks to hear - hopefully it'll be addressed! I'm a huge shmup fan particularly danmakus. Shmups from Cave in particular do a fantastic job: even when the screen is absolutely saturated with bullets like having a bag of dried rice dumped on your head, everything is still extremely visible.

Contrast that with Raiden. Some of the Raiden arcade games are notorious for combining the worst two traits: fast-moving projectiles that are also very hard to see.

by vunderba

5/26/2026 at 9:25:38 PM

Cave games are my absolute favorite.

DOJ is probably my favorite game of all time. It’s as close to perfection as any videogame has ever been for me.

Progear and Deathsmiles both my favorite horizontals from them. Deathsmiles probably edges it out just a bit.

As for Raiden I’m a huge fan of Raiden Fighters Jet also! Viper Phase 1 is also excellent.

by throwatdem12311

5/26/2026 at 11:00:27 PM

I always thought DDP and Progear were amazingly fun, but Espgaluda (specifically the simulation mode on ps2) was the first game that made me really think about playing for survival vs playing for score.

There was a summer where I could almost layout a top score on level 1. Thinking about scoring gimmicks really unlocks a different layer of depth in shmups once you get over the bullet hell.

by dfxm12

5/26/2026 at 10:14:14 PM

Nice! I'm a HUGE DoDonPachi fan, Mushihimesama is also great fun as well. I have the Nintendo Switch port coupled with an 8BitDo arcade stick and have sunk tons of hours into it.

by vunderba

5/27/2026 at 3:54:26 AM

I think I have like 300 hours on the Steam port of Mushihimesama, such a great game. Love the aesthetics. How’s the Arcade stick? I’ve been tempted to get one since I love the regular 8bitdo controllers and would love one I could use with both my Switch and PC.

by throwatdem12311

5/27/2026 at 5:29:55 AM

It's surprisingly decent for being kinda budget! I'm a big fan of 8bitDo because all their controllers are usu. easy to pair with all my stuff (Switch, PC, etc).

I’ve actually got my arcade stick temporarily modded with a Sanwa gate set to four-way, so it doesn’t register the diagonals like an eight-way stick. It works really well if you enjoy playing the TGM Tetris games.

by vunderba

5/27/2026 at 11:28:04 AM

I’ve been playing Tetris Effect on my PC with a keyboard (also the 8bit do mechanical keyboard, which I also love)lately and other than a 4 way gate stick I don’t think I could play any other way. Although I found the 4-button setup of the Nintendo joycon to work decently, they are so small and I have big hands so I get cramps quickly…

I have been debating between a (less expensive) 8bit do or the (nearly 3x price) Mayflash F700 but the mod ability of the 8bit do just might see me get both…both are moddable but I still want to keep one that is “pure” if you catch my drift. Seems I might be unknowingly but knowingly walking into a new weird niche hobby lol

by throwatdem12311

5/26/2026 at 6:37:23 AM

Tried to watch trailer but auto-scrolling carousel won't allow it.

by Evidlo

5/26/2026 at 6:41:55 AM

Same here. When you click on the video to ply the trailer the carousel keeps spinning it away.

by littlecranky67

5/26/2026 at 6:16:32 AM

I tried to watch the video on the website, but it auto scrolls to the next video whilst playing

by f4c39012

5/26/2026 at 4:05:23 PM

This looks amazing! Wishlisted on Steam, will buy it sometime.

by matheusmoreira

5/26/2026 at 1:30:24 PM

Looks like a labour of love, nice! Can you buy it to run yourself in an emulator, e.g., on an Anbernic handheld?

by mkirsten

5/26/2026 at 12:14:20 PM

native elf(glibc)/linux build? With "correct" binaries for broad distro support?

by sylware

5/26/2026 at 1:27:30 PM

Reminds me a lot of Contra

by mberg

5/26/2026 at 8:01:43 AM

12 year old me would have loved this. 60 year old me can't bear more than a few seconds of the trailer.

by hermitcrab

5/26/2026 at 5:48:29 PM

TBF if you're 60 then you were in your 20s when the genesis game out, which also means 12 year old you was maybe playing the newly released Atari VCS, which also means this game would have absolutely blown your mind at 12.

All to say, you were never the demo for this game - then or now. I'm in my mid-40s and this kind of game feels so refreshing when compared to modern games. Not to be a jerk or anything, but a few years completely changes context of your comment as games/tech were so rapidly evolving over this period.

I quit gaming in early 2000s, tried to get back into it a few times in last 10 years and it's just not very appealing to me unless this retro style games pique my interest. The only exception has been playing the big Nintendo titles with my son (he's 7 and got a Switch at the same age I got the NES).

by conductr

5/26/2026 at 9:40:26 AM

Looks like the gamer in 48 year old me is still 12 years old. I loved the vibe.

by noufalibrahim

5/26/2026 at 9:55:21 AM

For me the shoutiness outweighs any nostalgia. But I'm user I'm not the target market. ;0)

by hermitcrab

5/26/2026 at 6:32:10 AM

[flagged]

by greatgib

5/26/2026 at 8:04:25 AM

This isn’t “mega drive style”, this is a Mega Drive game that is also available on other systems.

Working to the limitations of 16-bit consoles to produce a modern-feel of game play is something that cannot be vibe coded.

by hnlmorg

5/26/2026 at 6:26:31 AM

[flagged]

by colordrops

5/26/2026 at 8:06:08 AM

The genre is called “shoot ‘em up” or “shmup” for short. And there our thousands of entires in that genre.

R-Type wasn’t the inventor of the genre and it’s far from the last entry in it too.

by hnlmorg

5/26/2026 at 6:02:34 AM

I was personally put off by the fact that the MegaDrive limitations actually negatively impact the gameplay, while there are little gains that I see in that "limited space fostering creativity" that you would expect from the pitch. In particular, there are bullet visibility issues (see the Electric Underground's review [0] for a more detailed analysis) which I think show how the console limitations would need a much deeper mastery to properly support such modern game design thinking.

However, "a Mega Drive game!" is a great sales point to the majority of people invested in the nostalgia market, with only a surface-level interest of what these games are. It's why it made it to the font page of hn, and not it's perfect 'traditional' sprite art, or its Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack.

I like shmups because they are pretty much "pure game design"; games are such a complete package of story, interactive experience, etc that it's hard to separate what comes from where. This is what makes design experimentation so interesting and rich.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELcS_IyXygs&t=2788s

by woolion

5/26/2026 at 8:01:56 AM

I cannot comment because why this made it to the front page, but new releases are still common for retro consoles. In fact you’d be surprised just how many games are still released for the 8 and 16 bit era machines.

by hnlmorg

5/26/2026 at 6:11:51 AM

I was always put off by the color palette of the Mega Drive. Every game looks a little sad and drab compared to the SNES or NeoGeo.

by MrBuddyCasino

5/26/2026 at 2:33:38 PM

I don't know I liked how each video game console at the time had its own audio and graphical signature. We were a Sega house but we enjoyed swapping our console for a few months with the SNES or PC Engine of friends/cousins and I think they liked it too.

It might have more to do with the game studios ecosystem more than technicalities given some games were ported on all 3 consoles with only minor differencies though.

I would describe both the audio and graphical signature of the megadrive as "Metalic" (a bit amiga 500 like but with FM sounds instead of samples) while the SNES one was more childish/cartoony (same as subsequent consoles from the brand really) and the pc engine one had more flat[1] graphics but more saturated/rock'n'roll sound signature.

[1] probably because it was halfway inbetween the sega master system and megadrive/snes in term of gfx capabilities.

by prmoustache

5/26/2026 at 1:21:36 PM

Are you judging by experiencing them on a CRT, or from modern displays? The range of colours was certainty broad enough, but I agree that the screenshots tend to look a bit bland. I wonder how much this came down to variance of the video signal at the analog stage. You had knobs for brightness, contrast, and saturation instead of the digital tweaking you have now. Perhaps it is that the color representation of live video has improved so that the knob level adjustment isn't needed anymore, but the output of the old consoles were tuned that level of adjustment people used to use to make the original video look nomal.

by Lerc

5/26/2026 at 6:24:08 AM

Specifically the SMD global palette had limitations around desaturated/pastel colours, with choice in saturated colours. And with no sprite blending, opportunities for subtle tones are further limited.

by simondotau

5/26/2026 at 9:57:55 AM

Sonic being the exception

by ekianjo

5/26/2026 at 8:11:45 PM

Another: Thunderforce 4. IMHO the finest horizontal shoot 'em up ever made on any system.

by zedr

5/27/2026 at 3:58:33 AM

Insane. I wished the SNES had the MD‘s CPU, with transparency and SPC700 this would have been even better.

by MrBuddyCasino

5/26/2026 at 10:15:05 AM

Right! That one looked cheerful.

by MrBuddyCasino

5/26/2026 at 11:47:19 AM

Doesn't that mean it's not the hardware's color limitations, but rather how color is used by the artists?

There are plenty of gorgeous games on the Mega Drive in terms of color. 61 colors on screen at once is more than enough.

by gryson

5/26/2026 at 12:24:29 PM

Thats not how exceptions work.

by MrBuddyCasino

5/26/2026 at 2:00:18 PM

If it's a hardware limitation, there are no exceptions. Which is it?

by gryson

5/29/2026 at 3:34:39 AM

Exceptions mean few people manage to work well with the constraints of the system. This issue is not found on the SNES where a lot of games look nicer.

by ekianjo